'Facebook Apps 2.0' revealed for Timeline

Facebook's latest venture into the app world will see 60 developer apps go live on the social network, possibly changing the way brands use the platform for local internet marketing purposes.

Apps for Timeline is Facebook's latest move to become an even bigger part of people's everyday lives, according to Technorati.

It aims to eliminate problems many users have with app discovery, providing a new distribution mechanism that embeds apps in Facebook's Timeline that will make the process of finding and viewing them much easier, notes MarketingLand.

Well-known companies such as Yahoo, Hulu, StubHub, LivingSocial, Foodspotting, Polyvore and Gogobot have all signed up, as well as a variety of others, with Facebook estimating "thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands" of Timeline apps eventually becoming available for public consumption.

In terms of branding, the move has results similar to the way Spotify was able to integrate itself into users' newfeeds, with Timeline exposure possibly becoming a form of "app SEO," the news source suggests.

According to Technorati, app integration will soon eliminate the importance of "Likes," giving brands a whole new medium to chase.

For example, Spotify users are able to display what songs they're listening to. This may soon extend to other activities, such as "cooking" certain brands of food, "running" in specific locations or "watching" a certain television show. Basically, it connects users in more advanced ways.

In terms of SEO, it's still unknown how ranking sites such as EdgeRank will weigh activities in relation to Likes. And marketing-wise, app developers won't be able to show ads but "could potentially do other things of a commercial nature," such as take a user to a link to buy shoes similar to those displayed in an app, MarketingLand predicts.

When questioned whether Facebook apps would be appear similarly on both PC and mobile, Facebook CTO Brett Taylor explained that mobile users may actually receive an experience that is "as good or better" than on a computer.

According to Mashable, people who want to add apps to their Timelines can broadcast their actions to everyone, keep them private or determine which specific individuals or groups of people get to view updates.

Facebook's blog reports that the additional companies to be included in the app launch are Pinterest, eBay, TripAdvisor and Rotten Tomatoes.

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